Rfid in the Medical Field Essay

RFID is now being used in the medical field to track and monitor the use of medical devices and also to locate medical personnel and patients. A company such as AwarePoint uses RTLS or real time locating systems to help their clients run their businesses efficiently and effectively. This company relies on RFID to provide its service to its clients. Awarepoint provides workflow automation and tracking solutions for acute care hospitals. Awarepoint automatically manages patient flow in clinical units, it locates and routes movable medical equipment to ensure proper cleaning, maintenance, distribution, and security. It also monitors and documents medical personnel compliance with hand hygiene requirements and other infection-containment protocols.

It monitors areas that are supposed to be temperature controlled environments. It even logs out of range events and documents corrective actions. Awarepoint facilitates management of turnover of inpatient beds by monitoring occupancy, status, and availability. By using this service, it helps medical facilities to also run more cost effectively and efficiently. The process of purchasing and installing Awarepoint is quite simple. Once the medical practice develops a floor plan and its business needs are determined, AwarePoint installs sensors in throughout the medical facility which allows the facility to have access to Awarepoint’s mesh network.

The next step is to attach RFID tags to the equipment and to have patient and medical personnel tags. Patient and medical personnel tags come in many forms; they can be attached to belt clips, lanyards, badges or an ID bracelet. After these two simple steps are completed, the medical facility is now able to track and locate the medical devices, staff or patients by using Awarepoint’s search engine. The search engine is simple to use and requires very little training.

A medical facility which has installed Awarepoint is able to effectively track their medical equipment which helps to decrease cost to the facility by reducing the number of “unable to locate” assets. Being able to locate the assets the facility spends less money replacing equipment. It also helps the facility to keep track of its inventory and prevents excess orders of inventory. The service also offers a temperature tracking component; by tracking the temperature in specific locations, it could assist the medical facility in controlling the temperature in locations such as the pharmacy, lab or dietary refrigerators.

Awarepoint facilitates all levels of medical personnel, from the administration to the infection and safety department. It helps administrators by increasing capacity and decreasing reimbursement. By providing real time location of equipment, patients and medical personnel, Awarepoint decreases room for delays; it facilitates the management of equipment budgets, increases staff efficiency and improves safety and compliance. As far as medical staff, Awarepoint makes sure the appropriate equipment is being used on the right patient and the right medical personnel are attending to the patient. Therefore, making it easier for the doctors and nurses to focus on patient care. Awarepoint also facilitates the IT department. It removes the threat of data loss and eliminates any other health IT complications to the Wi-Fi network.

Awarepoint also offers many different types of applications so medical facilities can choose one that is best suited to the facility. It offers an application that will manage the operating room schedule from personnel to equipment. This application streamlines the process of OR scheduling so the hospital can optimize its OR utilization. Awarepoint also provides an application geared to the emergency department. This application helps the emergency room to control their workflow therefore ensuring the patient receives the best care. It contains modules for EMS calls to admissions on the floor and even provides a module for documentation.

Given all the information, it is clear by using a company such as Awarepoint, a hospital would run most efficiently and most cost effectively to the facility. This company addresses the facility as an individual and assesses the company’s individual needs and concerns. It makes sure the medical practice receives the most bang for its buck. It ensures a rapid, clean and minimally invasive installation of its product. It also guarantees reliability and accuracy of its services. Best of all, the software is simple to use and requires minimal training.

Awarepoint prides itself on its return on investment for companies that use their product. It is proven that Awarepoint has enabled a facility to save $2 million just by “right-sizing” their mobile medical equipment capital expenditures. By using Awarepoint, the hospital was able to eliminate its need for rentals, saving the company $147, 776. Lost or stolen equipment rates dropped from 13.8% to an astounding 0%.

The company projected savings of $1 million from improved management and utilization of assets. For the emergency room, Awarepoint has increased revenue by $14.8 million annually because it was able to decrease the number of patients who left without treatment. In the operating room, Awarepoint added an average of 49 new cases per month, increasing revenue by $24 million annually.

As you can see this product streamlines processes so well that it guarantees a return on investment. It is practical and sensible to have software like Awarepoint to facilitate hospitals. It increases efficiency, decreases cost and provides increase revenue.

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